When I play a piece which is notated, even though I may have a freedom of choice - for instance in Stockhausen - I feel it's a curious sensation that I'm trying to describe, but the whole thing is, whatever you do, is like a stream of consciousness. And if I play something which is so notated, I notice now, after having done it for several years, that it has a tendency to put me to sleep. And it wants, all the time, to recede into an area where my feelings are called upon more and more. And all the features which seem to be so striking when the works were first composed now become much less striking. They don't seem important and so the whole thing recedes into a stream which is mainly a feeling.

Whereas if I play music which doesn't have any such requirement, but where I'm called upon to make actions and especially if the actions are undetermined as to their content or, let's say, at least undetermined as to what they're going to produce, then I feel that I'm alive in every part of my consciousness.

From 1892 to 1895, Dvorák was the director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York City, earning a then-staggering annual salary $15,000. His main goal at the time was to discover “American music” and use it in his works, much as he had earlier with Czech folk music. At the time this image was taken, he was with his family in the Czech-speaking community of Spillville, a town to some of his cousins had earlier immigrated. While there he composed the String Quartet in F (the "American"), and the String Quintet in E flat, as well as a Sonatina for violin and piano. He also conducted a performance of his Eighth Symphony at the 1883 Columbian Exposition in Chicago. A familiar image signed by one of the greats. (Source)